


we are all just trying to be holy.

by Languishing_Marble



Series: i stop somewhere, waiting for you [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gay Sam Winchester, Praying Sam Winchester, Pre-Season/Series 01, Religious Sam Winchester, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26357713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Languishing_Marble/pseuds/Languishing_Marble
Summary: Dean had probably said it a hundred different times and about a hundred different things that he thought were lame before; but it had taken someone who wasn’t it brother saying it, and saying it harsh for Sam to ask about it.“What does ‘gay’ mean?”Pre-Sastiel, Sam-centric, Gay and kinda-religious Sam stuff
Series: i stop somewhere, waiting for you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1923772
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	we are all just trying to be holy.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote by Richard Siken.  
> This is basically all the pre-series and pre-Cas stuff that needs to be there. I really feel like they could've done more for Sam’s discussions of faith, I’m not really religious or trying to put my beliefs on him, I just find those conversations in the show so interesting.

The whole car rumbled under Johns steering – once Dean got old enough to drive Sam had really noticed that how the car felt when different for either of them, he could wake up in the back seat and know who was driving before he even opened his eyes. The ride into Arkansas was boring and quiet, the Impala’s stereo was playing something by Creedence Clearwater that Sam was trying to ignore to get through revising and memorising the exorcism in front of him. He’d actually found a more efficient writing of it, they just had to test it out sometime, if John let him. But he kept letting his mind wander, a hard shove in the hallway and a harsh remark, playing over and over in his head. Dean had probably said it a hundred different times and about a hundred different things that he thought were lame before; but it had taken someone who wasn’t it brother saying it, and saying it harsh for Sam to ask about it.

“What does ‘gay’ mean?”

It took Dean a second to reply – and a glance to John in the front seat – that being gay was actually pretty simple; guys kissing guys, girls kissing girls.

“Oh.” Sam sat back in his seat, tilting his head back with a sigh and looking out of the window with unsatisfied brows furrowed.

“But it’s kind of just a thing you say when something’s stupid.” Dean added, scratching behind his ear – the last something in question was Sam’s hair.

“Oh, so it’s bad? Being gay?” Sam sat up in his seat, tucking his pen between his leg and the seat, looking at his brother with scrunched expressions.

Dean sighed, “Well it’s not bad but-,” John coughed, Dean shut up.

Sam got told his hair was gay at plenty more schools, and so were his good grades, and his hand-me-down jeans, and how short he was. Everyone seemed to know how gay Sam while he only just learned what gay was.

The brothers came into their school in Arkansas just in time for their one Sex-Ed talk, Mr. Nelson – probably the oldest gym teacher the boys had ever seen in their long career of schools – ran the all-boys assembly, he kept looking around expectantly as he talked, as if hoping they would all nod and say they already knew it all. Dean certainly could have, he was sitting in the back, itching to leave, and rolling his eyes. Mr. Nelson had finished and was taking questions – really stupid questions – so Sam wasn’t nervous to stick his hand in the air, his question was definitely not as stupid as the others, and he was just confused enough to say it in front of the whole assembly. Why wouldn’t they have just said it in the first place?

“What if you’re gay though?”

It sounded to Sam like all the students had laughed, or at least snickered, even Dean must have snickered. Mr. Nelson had started stuttering and one of the younger teachers jumped in with an awkward wave to the boys and a pat on the older teacher’s shoulder. He’d said something about sickness and a little bit about it being an ‘inappropriate subject’ to close out.

“You idiot,” Dean had elbowed him as he came out from the hall, “you’re lucky they didn’t call dad or something.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t bad?”

“Yeah Sammy,” Dean rubbed a hand over his face, “but you don’t ask about it in assembly! They didn’t even mention condoms – they are definitely not okay with that.”

“So, some people think it _is_ actually bad...?”

“Yeah Sam.” He threw his hands up, “I’m sure Mr. Nelson wants you to pray for your forgiveness for even bringing it up, okay? It isn’t like- _evil_ though, monsters are evil, it’s just weird, and not normal. So please stop bringing it up.”

Sam did stop bringing it up, but he learnt about what gay meant to people; he could tell dad didn’t like it, or Pastor Jim, or Uncle Bobby, or Dean – the didn’t sit him down and tell him they didn’t like it, no one said out-right ‘I hate gays’ – but he knew, like Dean said – it wasn’t normal. And then he learnt what gay actually was: Lucas Fundal running by while he waited for the Impala in his track uniform, Tony Grace when he stole Sam’s drink, took a swig, and gave it back with a grin, Andy Pond when he kissed him, Barry Cook touching his hand when he handed him his copy of _To Kill A Mockingbird._

Of course Sam was gay. He was never normal.

Except this wasn’t a not-normal he shared with his family.

He thought it would be hard, to keep a secret like that from everyone, from Dean. But it wasn’t, it was almost too easy, just nodding along and rolling his eyes, if you were quiet about it in the first place it was pretty easy for everyone to write it off as teenage embarrassment. It wasn’t even his only secret – it was a weird combination when you thought of it.

Sam had started praying sometime after he and Dean stayed with Pastor Jim during one of dad’s hunts. Dean had been trying to find a girl in the Sunday school willing to make out behind the church, and Sam was talking to Pastor Jim, and sitting in the quiet for the first time, not the hum of the Impala, or the AC of the motel. The church was quiet. Sam would sit and learn about scripture, not to hunt, not to study the next creature; just to learn. Pastor Jim would smile at his curiosity, ruffle Sam’s hair, and when John picked them up, he gave Sam a tiny pocket copy of the bible. Sam kept it in the bottom of his backpack to keep Dean off his back.

So Sam started praying about stuff, all the time. He’d lay in bed under lights through grimy motel windows and mouth out the lines he’d learnt. While his dad and brother were hunting Sam would sit at Bobby’s kitchen table and pray that they were okay, that they’d come back, but he’d always linger as long as he could once they were there to pick him up. And the more he learnt about being gay, Sam started praying about that too.

He couldn’t say it wasn’t part of why he wanted to get away from his family and hunting, it wasn’t exactly the most open minded field of work. Dean and Johns drinking buddies left Sam going to get air, or to go study in the Impala – anything to avoid them. Getting away probably sounded like the perfect chance to actually explore any form of his sexuality, and he did for a moment, Brady, but Brady introduced him to Jess. And he loved Jess, maybe not in the same way anyone else meant it, but it was love.

When he’d left for Stanford it felt right to miss Dean. Dean was the one who’d taken care of him his whole life, made him breakfast as a kid, when Sam had whooping cough as a kid Dean had taken care of him the whole time their dad was working – and called Bobby – because despite his best attempts he was still a kid, he was the snore across the room, the kick in the back of the knee, the movie night partner. At first Sam hadn’t even known what to do with his free time, he’d sit on his dorm bed and look at the wall and think. Were they okay? What were they hunting? If they called would Sam drop it all? Start researching the next monster of the week? So safe to say he was praying on it, a way to feel less at a loss without his family, a way to protect them – insufficient as it felt. It was different when Sam was sitting across the motel room, but sitting on the other side of the country wasn’t enough. Sam could pray all he wanted but he wasn’t going to be there to help. Which was, he supposed, John’s whole point. It felt weird to agree with John, bad weird.

It felt weird to include John, dad, sir… in his prayers too. To miss him, to miss that, not the orders and the training, not the yelling or the missed Christmases, but the times dad _was_ there, those rare rays of hope. When John Winchester was proud of his boys, when he let them be kids and let himself be a dad. Those bittersweet moments that Sam had clung to as a kid.

Because dad just hugged him, and that had to mean things were getting better.

Dad stayed in town for a little longer this time, does that mean we can stay even longer next time?

Cause dad had smiled at an idea Sam came up with for the first time and things would be better this time.

But they were moments few and far between. Moments he missed and hated himself for missing. Why was the most childish part of him still doing this? Still clinging to John Winchester for anything? Wasn’t he just thinking about how Dean had been the one to raise him? Why was he missing John then?

And praying helped with that too.

Jess thought it was sweet, and great, but also thought he should probably go to therapy as well. But then therapy wasn’t really worth it if you had to lie about your whole life while trying to be as honest as you possibly can. Jess had sighed and smiled and swept an affectionate hand through his hair at the excuses he gave her.

She was patient with his nightmares, and twitches, and anxiety. Things Sam didn’t realise he’d had or maybe just didn’t realise weren’t normal. Every hunter he’d ever met was a functioning alcoholic, some less functioning than others, he was still a college student, he was still having fun, but having fun was different than what his family did – Dean would disagree, of course. It had only really taken Sam his first year away to see all that in himself, to see how fucked hunting really was. Four years at Stanford, two since he’d spoken to Dean. He still missed Dean. He still missed John. He started praying that Dean wouldn’t be as burdened as their dad, as all the other hunters Sam had seen get old and burdened.

Jess invited him to meet her family last Christmas, a full, over the top Christmas, a hallmark movie if ever there was. They went to midnight mass and Sam resisted his urge to talk about the connections with the black mass, old habits die hard, but he sat and prayed with Jess and her parents and all her uncles and aunts, and tried not to think about the normal things they were praying for, and wished that all he was praying for was a good proposal, praying that Jess would say yes. But he prayed to be normal, not a hunter, prayed to be straight. Prayed that he and Dean could be more okay than their lives had been. And he prayed that his brother and father wouldn’t get their throats or intestines ripped out this hunt.

Maybe he was praying that they’d be alright without him so they’d stay away, so he _could_ propose, so he’d be happy in it, so he could think all those dreams about Jess, and the fire, and the ceiling were just dreams, so he _could_ be normal.

But dad went missing. And Dean came to him, for help.

And he went.

And none of those prayers were answered.


End file.
